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New Plex app on Chromecast stuck on loading

I have my Chromecast set to install preview versions and noticed last night that the new Plex for Chromecast app was installed. I was not able to stream any of my channels/plugins to it. Looking at the Plex server itself it was as if nothing was bring requested. The channels/plugins work on the phone app fine, I just can't cast them to the new Plex for Chromecast app

@brimur said:
I have my Chromecast set to install preview versions and noticed last night that the new Plex for Chromecast app was installed. I was not able to stream any of my channels/plugins to it. Looking at the Plex server itself it was as if nothing was bring requested. The channels/plugins work on the phone app fine, I just can't cast them to the new Plex for Chromecast app

Would just like to clarify for you - for future reference. The Chromecast preview setting is for the firmware the Chromecast runs. The Chromecast does not install any apps. The Chromecast is basically a full screen Chrome Browser. The "apps" it runs are loaded directly from servers on the internet at the point you connect to the Chromecast. Apps - are really Javascript, HTML and CSS - and as such not installable/downloadable.

Thanks for the info guys. Ok, I thought Chromecast firmware was relevant. If not then the latest version, which was released in the last week or so it seems as everything was working in the old version before then and I can see the visual differences, no longer works with the channel/plugin called LiveTVH. This channel allows me to watch my free to air and digital terrestrial TV in our bedrooms via Chromecast and a TV Headend server and tuner cards. As I said everything still works fine when using the Android App or the web interface via app.plex.tv but now when I select a Chromecast in any of the bedrooms it connects and it says "Loading" but never gets anywhere.

The channels are h264 and have either AAC or MP2 audio depending on where they are terrestrial or satellite, not familiar with HLS but if it was working before is this something that was taken away?

The new player attempts to figure out what can be direct played and what requires transcoding, and other people are reporting having to edit the Chromecast XML file to get things to play correctly. I don't suggest doing that - but having a quick look at the github page for LiveTVH - it talks about tagging the channels so that Plex has an idea of whether the channel can be played via direct play or requires transcoding. If you have tagged these channels, I'd suggest untagging ONE channel and see if Plex transcodes the stream, and it suddenly becomes playable. It could well be an issue that Plex thinks the Chromecast can play the stream without transcoding, but the Chromecast can't support the codecs. Either way - providing logs from the point that you try and play a channel so we can see what the Chromecast and Plex are doing - is probably a good place to start.

Sort of. I'd assumed we'd be able to use DASH or mkv everywhere, but not all channels fit that profile. We should be able to get them working again but the 'obvious' change didn't seem to work. I've added a task for us to look at this again.

And agreed that logs are always helpful

(I also don't think I'm surprising anyone if I tell you that one reason to upgrade the player stack on chromecast was so that we can 'catch up' with other Plex apps that support content such as Live TV/DVR).

I'd also push again for not changing your chromecast.xml. If you find that actually does something, let us know and we can try and roll out the change for everyone.

@Dom C I tried using going the official route and I setup Plex DVR/Live TV and I get this message below. My use case as is probably the majority of people out there is an android or ios based player casting to a TV.

This makes me sad. What is Plex's plan here? Are we not supposed to be able to watch TV using a Chromecast and a HD TV? It makes no sense to me that you would handicap your own implementation and then release a player update that disables other 3rd party implementations that do work.

This makes me sad. What is Plex's plan here? Are we not supposed to be able to watch TV using a Chromecast and a HD TV? It makes no sense to me that you would handicap your own implementation and then release a player update that disables other 3rd party implementations that do work.

The rewrite of the app was to use same player stack as the desktop application. This makes it possible in future to support Live TV/DVR as well as other Plex use cases that the previous player stack could not.

The first release of this rewrite was intended to match the behaviour of the previous receiver. (Hence the slightly weasel wordy 'not currently supported'. Future releases will add support for other parts of Plex, but I can't commit to exact timeframes. I'm afraid the break for HLS channels was not intended, and we hope to fix that if we can.

I hope that makes the plan a bit clearer, and I'm sorry you're unable to use your Live TV solution right now.

I'm still having 3 issues after looking though all the responses and solutions here.

1: I can't cast any media though plex. I get "Loading: Playback will begin in a moment". and the circle runs for awhile until it gives an error.

2: Not sure this is related to above, but when casting Plex, I get a screen that says "Ready to Cast", but when I open a TV show or Movie folder on plex, the casted screen does not update to show what I've selected, or display the photo and description of the show as it used to.

3: I can't gain a direct connection to plex on my phone anymore, all devices connected to the same LAN. I can only get direct connection, and I can't cast to my chromecast from my android phone.

All these issues only occurred after the last update. When or how will this be fixed?

News and live TV are not supported for casting, and weren't on the old app either. One of the primary reasons for the new app was to bring it into line with the player technology we use on the desktop app so we can (in future) bring support for these parts of Plex.

We don't use the MPL (for many, likely dull, reasons) but don't currently support HLS. We do want to try to reenable this though.

@ChristianoFar you might fare better with a dedicated post for your issues, but hopefully I can help a bit here:

I can't gain a direct connection to plex on my phone anymore, all devices connected to the same LAN. I can only get direct connection, and I can't cast to my chromecast from my android phone.

Sounds like the potential problem here. Can you access your server ok from plex.tv/web?

DOM C, But it will be more comfortable from user point of view for casting everything to Chromecast (news, channels, live tv).
Many tv in the world don’t have plex smart tv application, many people don’t want to see tv from computer, they want big Tvset probably with Chromecast.

Better if plex also will support other UPnP cast devices for othe tvset and recievers( for example Sony Bravia tv cast , Samsung tv and money other). If plex will support many tvset and Chromecast for all content (Channels, news, Live tv, films, music , pictures)- it will be great and main video , audio cast application in AppStore and google play!!!

I made research of App Store applications which can work with Chromecast.
Some of them working very bad with Chromecast.

Only nPlayer plus and Plex working not bad with surround sound and Chromecast especially if Chromecast passthrow needs (I used audio extractor with SPDIF toslink output for surround sound )
Chinese application “GSE IPTV” working good with iptv list from m3u files with Chromecast , but it doesn’t support DLNA servers.

Other applications with DLNA support can’t work with iptv throw DLNA ( now plex also can’t because of temporarily channel problem)

But no app in AppStore which work good with surround sound and iptv (probably live tv) together.

For now plex is one of the best in appstore from surround sound, because no one app except PLEX can transcode AAC 5.1 to AC3 DD and made AC3 passthrough. even nPlayer Plus can’t made it!

If you return channels to Chromecast (for example for m3u playlist and others interesting applications) and probably other feature (live tv, news) plex will be the best from Chromecast user point of view in AppStore and probably in google play also !!

@Dom C said:
News and live TV are not supported for casting, and weren't on the old app either. One of the primary reasons for the new app was to bring it into line with the player technology we use on the desktop app so we can (in future) bring support for these parts of Plex.

We don't use the MPL (for many, likely dull, reasons) but don't currently support HLS. We do want to try to reenable this though.

@ChristianoFar you might fare better with a dedicated post for your issues, but hopefully I can help a bit here:

I can't gain a direct connection to plex on my phone anymore, all devices connected to the same LAN. I can only get direct connection, and I can't cast to my chromecast from my android phone.

Sounds like the potential problem here. Can you access your server ok from plex.tv/web?

@brimur said:
I have my Chromecast set to install preview versions and noticed last night that the new Plex for Chromecast app was installed. I was not able to stream any of my channels/plugins to it. Looking at the Plex server itself it was as if nothing was bring requested. The channels/plugins work on the phone app fine, I just can't cast them to the new Plex for Chromecast app

Also having the same issue described above,so would be great if you could let us know when fixed!
My issue only started yesterday. Can share logs if that's helpful - but will need guidance on where/how to get these logs.

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